The Chains That Bind
by Koch
Summary: The Brotherhood-NCR War is in full swing. Having barely escaped the destruction of their base, the tattered remains of the Brotherhood of Steel retreat north to the untamed Wastelands of Oregon. But no matter how far they run the NCR will follow.
1. Chapter 1

The bunker doors opened with an audible hiss, air rushing into steel hallways not opened to the outside in centuries. The forest around had nearly completely overtaken the bunker's few surface facilities. Thick vegetation clung to the concrete structures, choking them until they would one day die and return to the earth that had made them lifetimes ago.

But now the bunker was again alive with activity; hulking, armored warriors stalked through the bunker's primary gate and their footsteps clanged loudly on the Spartan steel floors.

"Sweep the bunker," one said. "Make sure we're alone."

He turned and to another such armored soldier, "Bring the wounded in as soon as we've secured the medbay."

Senior Paladin Jasper Riley sighed inside his helmet. He was exhausted from a long day of forced march and he knew many of his remaining men had to be feeling the same way, even if not a one of them would show it. He was proud of them then. Much had been asked of the Brotherhood of late and these that stood with him now had answered and with all they had and more.

But now they were nearing the end of their wick. The demands of war were weighing on them quite heavily now and they had lost so much it seemed as though they had nothing more to give up in the name of the Sacred Mission.

"What's the name of this place?" he asked of Senior Scribe Williams. The scribe shook his head.

"I don't know," he said simply.

"We're lucky to have found it."

"We owe your Knight Keegan for that, I think," Williams said. Jasper shook his head and frowned within in his armor.

"Knight Keegan is a valued member of the order," said Jasper and Williams allowed himself a small smile at that. "At any rate we owe a broken radio as much as we owe her skills at reconnaissance."

It was true, from a certain point of view. This bunker had apparently been located by the Brotherhood of Steel once before, when there men enough to send out on parties this far north. Pressing needs elsewhere had meant that no men could be spared to man this outpost and so it was mothballed and sealed for future use.

That day had come.

A single pulsing tone over the radio on an unused channel had led them to the area, hopeful that there would be more survivors of Fort Collins. Knight Keegan's scouting team had found instead a silent network of concrete boxes and rusted fencing hidden in a dark thatch of trees – a northerly forest overgrown in the absence of man.

"Let's find an operations room," said Jasper and he and the scribe took their first real steps into the bowels of the bunker. It was an old US Army shelter once upon a time, before the Great War had eliminated both the United States and its Army. At a guess, Jasper thought it had perhaps been part of a coastal defense system built for the Great War. Why it had been found abandoned, seemingly lost in an ocean of green, was something he could only guess at.

For now it would serve as a place to rest and regroup until a counterattack on the New California Republic could be mounted.

Senior Paladin Riley made a fist of his armored gauntlet at the thought. Fort Collins was a smoldering ruin by now, the fires ignited from within now consuming the buildings and the advanced technologies that they had been unable to take with them. In that Jasper felt there was a small victory. Though they had won this fight, the NCR would not be able to turn acquired armor and weapons against the Brotherhood or make use of the military base.

Though they had still dealt the Brotherhood a stinging defeat. A whole chapter of men and women now scattered to the four winds, many dead defending the retreat.

Elder Norman missing and hundreds of others.

The bunker complex was as any Jasper had seen before. Though the particulars sometimes differed, the placement of vital structures and facilities was usually the same. Now a small platoon of Paladins and Knights was sweeping the complex, checking for any signs of occupation. Already Jasper knew they would find none.

The group that had first found the bunker had swept it and sealed it, painting the sigil of the Brotherhood on the outer door as a sign to ward off squatters. The gear encircling a sword sigil of the Brotherhood had been unbroken, paint dry between the doors.

The operations center would be found in the heart of the complex, positioned to be best defended from bombings and attack. There they would find a myriad of equipment to be used in the bunker's operations – everything from long-range radios to early warning devices.

Deeper still in the bunker would they find medical facilities and armories. Perhaps still fully stocked and ready to be put to use.

The operations center was sealed behind heavy doors, protected from blast and reinforced all around to prevent cave-in.

Knight Gomez was very good at cracking locks, however, and after a few minutes' work he was opening the door to banks of deactivated screens and computers. The centerpiece of the room, as always, was the massive field mapping array, a table-sized computer structure capable of mapping and displaying the local area for use in planning strategy.

The lights had still not been activated and so Jasper could only view the room with his helmet's image intensifying night vision.

"How does it look?" Williams asked, unable to view the full room with his dim headlamp.

"Beautiful," said Jasper in a muted tone. "Everything I've ever wanted."

Even as he spoke he felt weight on his chest besides the armor.

He hadn't yet admitted it to himself but now, looking into what would be the headquarters for his chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel, he might very well be the commanding officer.


	2. Chapter 2

The days of running from California, evading NCR patrols, lugging equipment to important to lose and caring for wounded men – and stripping the bodies of weapons and armor and giving them only makeshift burials – had given him no time to think. Now, standing in the doorway of an ancient operations center with dormant computers, he felt the weight of command on him.

There was a still a war on. There were still men out there trying to find other bands of Brotherhood survivors to regroup. He had wounded. He had a fight.

"I shall see about restoring electricity," said Williams. "I highly doubt the reactors have been fully shut down."

Senior Scribe Williams turned down a dark hallway and vanished.

By sundown the power had been restored, the aging nuclear reactors holding enough fuel rods still to power the base for a number of years. The tattered band that had been a full chapter was now making their home in the bunker, and the wounded had been taken to the medical facilities. Though the medbay had not been fully stocked as Jasper hoped, it held enough supply to tend to their wounded, if not many more than what they had.

An armory had been discovered deep within the bunker, and initial reports were very optimistic of their find.

The remaining scribes had located the bunker's server room and were making headway in restoring many of the old systems. Much was left to be done but the serious blow dealt to the Brotherhood of Steel in northern California had been cushioned significantly.

Jasper had called a meeting of the ranking members of the chapter, those that could be located, in order to set about reorganizing and repairing their losses and figuring out what needed to be done in the short term to prepare the order for the long term.

The mapping table was active now, and displayed an imperfect but workable map of the surrounding area. Though systems were still being brought back online the computers were capable of displaying data on the bunker's essential systems.

Most were in the green but a few systems were either offline or in danger of going that direction. Those problems had to be ironed out for this to truly become home to the Brotherhood.

Gathered around the table now were the remaining heads of the chapter. Senior Scribe Williams was the head of the order of scribes now with the chapter, and represented a pool of knowledge and technical skill that they would need if they meant to return to their former glory.

Knight Keegan was there to represent their force of knights and was perhaps their best scout. She would be increasingly necessary in the coming days, especially as Jasper took stock of their personnel and continued needs.

Paladin Bannon was there as the next most senior Paladin, and Jasper's second-in-command.

Scribe White stood off to one corner of the table, her clipboard in hand and glasses sinking low on her nose. She would be functioning as his personal aide, something of a secretary crossed with a personal servant.

"We know we are here," Jasper said, indicating the bunker's position on the map. "Right now we're calling it Black Forest."

"As far as we can tell we're somewhere in Oregon, maybe as far as the northeast," Keegan said. Her armor was faded and dirty from her scouting trips and her helmet was set on the table's edge. Her hair was messy from so much time sweaty and mussed while on the move.

"This forest is too thick to get a good reading on our position," she continued. "So we're waiting on nightfall to get a reading by the stars."

"The remote location gives us an advantage," said Jasper. "NCR patrols clearly haven't found this place yet, and the forest is thick enough they could pass right by it and not see it."

The map reacted to his gesture, the pointer moved and the scene expanded.

"Our mapping of the region is incomplete. It was reliant on prewar satellites for imaging intelligence. Naturally satellite reception is spotty. So we're going to have to map the place by hand. Old fashioned way."

"We have the equipment to do it," Keegan said. She turned to Williams.

"I should say it's hardly a priority at the moment," the Senior Scribe said. "But yes, the equipment is on hand and if your knights are willing to do the legwork the rest is a fairly simple job."

"In addition, we need a full count on everything. We need to know who and how many we have left. Williams get one of your men on that. We also need a full inventory of what we have on hand here at Black Forest. We might be fighting off a siege within the week if we aren't lucky."

"And we aren't lucky," Paladin Bannon stated. "I can start rounding my people up for a headcount. I know I have at least five bedridden."

"None of our medical cases are terminal," Williams said. "Three days on the march must have taken care of that."

"Watch your mouth, scribe," Bannon said, not bothering to look at Williams. The Senior Scribe frowned.

"Bannon," Jasper said, voice subtly stern and commanding. "We're going to need to look to our defenses. If we're going to see a fight soon I want it to be our fight."

"Understood, Elder."

Jasper raised a hand at that. "I'm not the Elder. And that's a discussion I'd rather save for another time. Paladin will suffice for now."

Bannon nodded at that, suppressing a grin.

"A lot to do, too little time to do it in," said Jasper, standing straight at attention. "Dismissed."

They turned to leave, Keegan taking up the rear behind Williams.

"Cheryl," said Jasper, raising a hand gently to halt her. "Wait a moment."

He turned to Scribe White, whose eyes darted quickly between Jasper and Keegan.

"See about setting up a radio beacon," he told her. "Have one of your order do the task."

She nodded swiftly and excused herself, a bun of pale blonde hair coming undone in her wake. Keegan approached Jasper, keeping the table between them. She didn't speak until the door had sealed shut behind White.

"What is it?"

"I need you to stay."

"We don't have time for this. I have work to do."

"I know," he said. Wryly he added, "You've always had work to do."

She placed a hand on the table, her arm cradling her helmet.

"Do you want to have this argument here?"

"No. I don't want to have any argument."

"Then why did you ask me to stay?"

"Because I can't have you going out there right now."

She placed her helmet gently on the table before working her hand into a fist and slamming the table edge.

"Goddammit, Jas, I will not fight with you right now!" she kept her voice just below a shout. Better not to make a scene that way.

"You cannot leave this facility, Knight Keegan, because you are the senior knight until someone else shows up with years on you," Jasper said, keeping his voice low and measured. "I need you here, helping me get this place up and running. You can send some of your men to scout the terrain. But I need to know how much ammo we have, how many weapons, do we have defenses we can get online. I need the knights set to task and I need someone to command them."

She scanned him with sharp green eyes and Jasper thought guiltily to himself that she looked very beautiful even if she looked somewhat filthy. Maybe it was the filth that added to her appeal.

It hadn't been so long ago they'd been in the field together. They'd come up through the ranks together, rising stars in their fields. She had been there to see him raised to Paladin, and Senior Paladin. Her smiling approval had almost been worth more to him than the promotion in rank.

Things were different now. War had changed everything, it seemed.

"I think you're just looking for a way to keep me close at hand," she said, voice calm. She was still staring daggers at him and he recognized that somewhere in that machine of a soldier was a beating heart, perhaps one that hurt as much as his.

"And if I am does that make you any less senior amongst our knights?"

"It doesn't," she said. "It just makes you a child."

He nodded at that. "If that was what I was trying to do."

"If," she said. She picked up her helmet again, held it under her left arm. " _If_."

"Don't do this," Jasper said, weakly. He wasn't speaking as Senior Paladin right now. And she could feel it.

"I don't expect you to run everything off your feelings," she said, voice suddenly raw. "I know you're a Paladin first, and a man second. But… but you are human. I'm human. We make mistakes."

She looked at him when she said and somehow the word "mistakes" echoed in his mind. He closed his eyes, dropping his head lightly.

"You have duties to attend to," he said. "Dismissed, Knight Keegan."

She mimed a bow before turning for the door, sliding her helmet over her head as she did and engaging the seal.

Keegan spoke before she left, her voice distorted by the helmet's speakers.

"Can we just wait to talk about this?"

"Of course we can," said Jasper. Always the reasonable one, he thought to himself. He was always the reasonable one.

The door closed behind Keegan and Jasper turned to the bank of computer monitors that were just now beginning to feed him data. The bunker was newly alive and it had a few growing pains to get through before they could call it business as usual.

Paladin Riley tried to take some solace in the fact that he would be working too hard for the next few days to think about Cheryl Keegan.


	3. Chapter 3

He didn't know why the war had started, truthfully. That was something for the High Elder and his council to know. He was a soldier and he followed orders. Those orders said fight.

The New California Republic was a unique threat. In times past the Brotherhood had worked alongside them to fight common threats but now they were standing against each other as enemies.

Jasper had been barely a paladin for a week then, raised from initiate at the completion of his training. The word had come down from their Elder that the NCR was now an enemy and they would be acting alongside the other chapters of the Brotherhood to defeat them.

Keegan nudged him gently with her elbow.

"Excited?" she asked. She was beaming.

"I am," Jasper said. He was being quiet, he knew. They were sitting up in his bunk, in a near-empty barracks room in the bunker.

"Paladin Riley," she said, playing the words around her mouth. She made a show of rolling her tongue about. "I almost want to be a Paladin now."

"Jealous?"

"No, I just don't want people to start thinking you're as good as me."

"That's going to be a serious problem, then," said Jasper. "Because I happen to be much better."

They shared a laugh. Cheryl Keegan's eyes were bright then. Perhaps with hope. Perhaps with something else the war had taken from them.

"I'm going to be a knight," she said. "I'm good at that."

"Yeah, you are. You'll be a senior knight in no time."

"I can't wait," she whispered. "I'm so ready to start telling people what to do."

"Except me," he said. And she laughed.

"Especially you!"

 _Can I tell you something, Cheryl?_

 _I'm afraid._

"Paladin Riley. Jasper."

He opened his eyes. He had fallen asleep at his desk. At least he wasn't drooling.

Scribe White was there, holding a steaming cup.

"They found coffee in the mess hall," she said, voice light and cracking from exhaustion. Jasper took it gratefully and sipped.

He was sitting now, at a real desk. The commander's quarters had been found on the second level and he'd moved in there to have access to the various command apparatus.

"I wasn't sleeping long was I?"

"Only a few hours. I came in earlier but I thought you could use the sleep."

"I'm sure you could, too," said Jasper. He grimaced at the strong coffee.

"I do alright on little sleep," White said almost proud of the fact.

"Get some rest," Jasper told her. He stood and stretched. "That's an order."

She smiled sheepishly and hurried off to find an empty bunk.

Jasper felt sore all over and strangely lighter now that his armor was sitting on a table nearby. Every step felt oddly solid, not springing and weighted like it did in the powered armor.

As much as the Brotherhood prided itself on such advanced equipment it could often be cumbersome and not a comfortable way to live. He recognized it was the cost of being who they were with the mission they had but sometimes he wished he could be like the scribes and were a robe all day.

Jasper drank as much coffee as he could before setting the cup down and stepping out into the cold hallway.

There were people everywhere, it seemed, all busy either carrying equipment or opening wall panels to access wiring. Two knights were carrying a laser turret up a flight of stairs, per orders to strengthen base defenses.

Though inventory was still being taken in the armory, a discovered case of landmines had been put to use. The largest paths through the trees to Black Forest bunker were now mined and any force thinking to march through their front door would be in for a rude awakening.

An observation/listening post was being set up at the forest's edge where an aged highway ran parallel.

The first headcount was in and it appeared that some two hundred members of the order had made it with them from Fort Collins. That was good news, though it still saddened Jasper to hear so many men had not managed the journey.

He could only hope that there were more out there, in bands and groups, making their way north or to Lost Hills or even Hidden Valley.

For now he pushed those thoughts aside and tried to remember what it was he had to do yet.

Jasper strode proudly through the hall, nodding and acknowledging each and every person he saw. Morale was flagging, he knew. A defeat and long retreat would do that. He had to give these people hope again and though that thought was daunting he knew that there was no one else he could pawn this off on.

Knight Keegan was standing at the doorway to the secondary armory, holding a clip board and flipping through a stack of papers with a pencil in one hand.

"Keegan, what have you got for me?"

She regarded him with a quick flip of her eyes.

"Good news or bad?"

"I haven't had any good news in a while."

"We have plenty of guns."

"What could be bad about that?"

"Most of them are last years' style."

Jasper rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Simple English please."

"At last count this armory contains forty-two M16s, thirty N99 10mms, Thirty Colt M1911 .45s, Twenty-nine M60 machine guns, twenty-two M79 grenade launchers, eighteen DKS-501 sniper rifles, twelve FALs, and a single pump-action shotgun," She said, thumbing through the list.

It wasn't ideal but it was something. This being the secondary armory Jasper could only hope the real artillery was in the primary armory on the third level. Luckily enough they had enough energy weapons brought with them to arm every man under his command and still have spares.

"Ammunition is plentiful," said Keegan. "I think we counted around fifty thousand assorted rounds of ammunition in this locker alone. I'll have an itemized count eventually."

"We should get an inventory of our energy weapons and cells, too. We might have to make do with what we carried here."

The loss of Fort Collins stung now harder than it had when he saw the base in flames. There were racks of laser guns in that base, shelves of energy cells. They had perhaps enough firepower there alone to fight this war and now they were going to have to figure out how to go back to bullets.

That would be a problem indeed.

Energy weapons were more complex and yet so much simpler than guns. With a bullet you had to consider the effect of gravity, wind, differences in angles and the velocity of the bullet. A laser gun was mainly point and shoot. The differences were in terms of simplicity under the hood, of course, but two hundred men and women trained on energy weapons now needed training in firearms.

"Have you heard anything about your brother?" Keegan asked suddenly. Jasper blinked away confusion.

"No," he said. "I don't know. I haven't asked. I guess I figured…"

"He could still be out there," she said. She was looking at him with a small smile, reaching out to place a comforting hand on his shoulder. "He's one of our best fighters. If anyone could make it out it's him."

"Maybe. If there's anyone else out there I just hope they hear our signal."

She nodded in agreement. "I have to get back to work."

"When was the last time you slept?"

Keegan shrugged. "Didn't I say to stop asking me stupid questions?"

She smiled at him, dark bags under her eyes.

"I'll get over it," she said. "I ordered some of my men to get rack time."

"Well as soon as they're awake you get some too. That's an order."

"You like saying that too much," she said, with a soft laugh. For an instant Jasper forgot he was supposed to be fighting a war. She looked up at him, eyes moist.

They stood for a long moment, and Jasper could only imagine what she thought now. Did she love him still? Was she hoping he would kiss her now? Or was it just wishful thinking on his part?

He felt cold ice slip into his veins and said, "I'm going to take a walk around. Check up on everyone."

"Right," she said, and turned back to her papers. "I'm about to go to the level three armory."

"I'll have to talk to you later," he said and she gave a quiet grunt of agreement as he walked away. The hallways seemed suddenly longer and colder.


	4. Chapter 4

Medbay was quiet for a place so busy. There were only a handful of scribes left with medical training and nearly fifty patients in need of medical attention.

"Ah, hello, Senior Paladin," said the scribe in charge, a man named Calson. "Do you have any medical issues in need of attention? I assure you we are able to handle most problems."

"Most problems?"

"Indeed," Calson said, standing up from behind his desk and walking around to speak to him. "Unfortunately we lack as many advanced medical supplies as we had available in Fort Collins. I can only presume the original inhabitants of this bunker took with them the important materials."

"Do you have what you need to treat our wounded currently?"

"Yes, I should say so. We have a fair number of stimpaks. I don't lack for medical tubing or instruments."

"What about future injuries? We may be in combat soon."

"That is the question, isn't it?" Calson said. He shook his head.

"I cannot guarantee we could treat these men again if we had to."

"Then we're going to need to make it a priority to recover more medical supplies. If we're close to old world facilities we may still find something."

"I cannot understate the value of an autodoc now that I know what it is like to not have one. I've had to perform a fair few surgeries to remove bullets. We've depleted our supply of blood."

"Great," Jasper whispered. "Well, for now take volunteers to have their blood drawn. Make up a list of more supplies you need and I'll figure out how to get to them."

"Thank you, Senior Paladin."

Jasper nodded. "Make sure you and your men are sleeping in shifts. Right now you are the most important men I've got."

Calson smiled at that. "Thank you, sir. We are already cycling ourselves. My shift is coming up soon."

Jasper parted with Calson then, turning back down the hallway and headed for operations. The barracks was on the way and within he could hear a small din of noise, from weapons and armor being manipulated to snoring. Soldiers could find a time and place to sleep anywhere, in any condition, just give them the opportunity.

It spoke to the strength of Brotherhood training and was something Jasper took solace in. He could count on his men, even as they neared the ends of their rope.

Operations was surprisingly full, scribes and knights alike going about their work. Computers that were nonfunctional were being refurbished while the working ones were being given their diagnostic routines.

Bannon stood near the mapping table, making notations with a grease pencil.

"Morning, Senior Paladin," he said. "I hope you got some rack time in."

"A little," said Jasper. "Have you?"

"I got a few hours. I can't sleep though. Too much to do."

"I understand that."

Jasper leaned over the table, examining Bannon's notes. He was making a tracing of terrain that was being mapped by Keegan's scout squad. Already a number of hills that didn't used to exist were being added in and a thicker forest. Two centuries without industrial civilization was enough to change the terrain.

"Do we have anything that looks like it might have medical supplies yet?" asked Jasper. "A hospital or anything?"

"We've only got a perimeter a few miles out right now but Whiskey squad reported seeing a structure in these hills," Bannon pointed to the map where a number of hills the existed now had also been here before the war. "It looks like an old shack they said but the area is a good place to put a bunker."

Jasper nodded, understanding Bannon's meaning.

"If there is a Vault there, it might still have medical equipment."

"And who knows what else in the way of technology."

The Brotherhood of Steel had been formed many years ago, by Roger Maxson, with the mission of acquiring the advanced technology that would endanger those without the knowledge to use it. Powered armor, laser weapons, plasma and anything else that could allow a tribal group to wreak destruction without understanding the strength they carried had to be secured for the protection of the human race.

The Great War had ended with a massive nuclear exchange that nearly erased humanity. The men controlling those weapons had not understood the potential for destruction they possessed. In the early days after, when the men under Roger Maxson's command made the Exodus to Lost Hills bunker facility, it was decided that mankind should no longer be able to threaten itself with weapons it did not understand. And so the great mission began to acquire every piece of technology that might be used to destroy humankind.

It had been easy then, Jasper reflected. There weren't many organized groups much larger than a town and a suit of power armor and a laser rifle was a force multiplier like no other – to say nothing of a whole army of them.

Those days were gone. The wasteland was seeing the rise of whole nation-states. Factions with real organization, real power. The New California Republic had become the major player on the west coast, overshadowing even the Brotherhood, Jasper hated to admit.

They had annexed a large handful of some of the most prosperous groups in the west and now had industry and a military. And the Brotherhood still only had a suit of power armor and a laser rifle.

In that way the disaster at Fort Collins had been inevitable.

As Jasper sat there, looking at a tactical map in the vein of sand tables used by ancient generals to plan battles, he felt for the first time since he had been raised from an initiate to a full brother of the order that the mission was past completing.

Now he could hope only to keep his men alive and to survive this war.

"We need medical supplies," said Jasper, simply.

"We can reorient our forces towards locating caches but without a good lead…"

"I know."

He cleared his throat as he thought.

"I don't want us to get used to being cooped up here in the bunker, hiding underground like scared roaches. I'm going to lead a team to recon that position and see if there's a Vault there."

"You don't need to lead a team," said Bannon. "I can do that or someone else."

"I want to go out," Jasper said. "I need to get a feel for the area."

"I can't argue with you," said Bannon. "I'm sure the men will appreciate the show of solidarity."

Jasper nodded. He needed another cup of coffee – with sugar – and to get armored up. He would need four good men.

As one of the Senior Paladins of the chapter Jasper had the benefit of being equipped with some of their best gear. His personal suit of armor was a once-polished T-51b. The armor had been the pinnacle of military technology before the War. The Brotherhood of Steel still maintained a great many suits and the knowledge to use them. However no new suits were being made, the ability to do that having been destroyed with the rest of the world, and all the Brotherhood could do was maintain what they had. And every year that meant fewer suits. Though somehow there were fewer brothers to fill them so it tended to even out.

In addition to T-51b, the Brotherhood maintained a wealth of T-45d suits. The older T-45d had been used by the US Army's Armored Cavalry Regiments in Alaska against the Chinese forces there. They had been rapidly replaced by the T-51b which meant there were perhaps thousands of suits of T-45d available in bunkers and armories from coast to coast.

The older T-45d was made of riveted armor sections compared to the plastic components in the T-51b's construction. Though it had a slighter build the increased weight and less powerful servos made the suit a bit more cumbersome to wear. For that reason the T-51b was preferred wear for combat.

Jasper reasoned he was lucky, therefore, to still have his suit after all these years. The polish was well faded and there were nicks and tiny dents all over the suit.

He held the helmet in his hands and examined the dirt and scratches along the dome of the head.

"You're going to stare a hole into that if you don't stop looking at it!" Cheryl had warned him when he'd first received it.

"I can't help myself," he said. "I love it way too much."

He'd just been given the suit as part of his promotion ceremony. Keegan was still awaiting hers, to be given when she was called to the order of knights.

"You remember what Paladin Hugh said, right?"

"Armor doesn't make you invincible. It doesn't make you a better fighter. It only gives you the tools you need to keep fighting longer."

"I just don't want you to start thinking you're invincible. You know we've lost a lot of good Paladins."

"I know."

A lot of good Paladins.

He stood and began donning his armor. The weight was familiar and comforting. It felt like the embrace of an old friend.

He activated the armor's power system and the servos hummed to life. Almost automatically the weight was lifted and the armor seemed to move itself at his will.

He still had his laser rifle and three fully charged microfusion cells. It wasn't ideal but certainly more than enough for a simple recon mission.

He heard his door slide open behind him and there was the solid knock of an armored fist on the doorframe.

"I'm not bothering you, am I?" Keegan asked. He turned and saw that she wore her armor, helmet held to the side and her hip cocked as well as she could manage behind the bulk of a suit of T-51b.

"Where do you think you're going?" Jasper asked, already knowing this was a finished argument.

"You're going on a recon. I'm your best scout. Come on, _Senior_ Paladin, that's easy math."

He grinned behind the stern visage of the helmet, and somehow knew she was doing the same.

"I thought I gave you a job to do?" he asked. She shrugged.

"I delegated. All the best leaders do it."

"Do you have three more men?"

She nodded. "Galvez, Maroney and Taylor. They're some of the best scouts."

They had been amongst the brothers that had guided the chapter in its retreat north. Without their keen senses they might never have found the bunker.

"Okay," Jasper said. "Get your men ready and we leave in five."


	5. Chapter 5

Three minutes later the steel blast doors to the bunker were opening, the sound of unlubricated metal grinding on metal ringing in Jasper's helmet. He cradled the laser rifle in his arms, the strength of the suit holding itself in place while he let his arms rest.

It was nearly midday and sunlight streamed through the forest canopy in radiant bands that reflected off the lush green scenery that made Jasper feel like he was on an alien world.

He glanced down at his HUD, finding where the Vault's location had been marked on his compass.

"Let's try not to take too long," he said over his team comm. "I don't want to be out here in the dark."

"Roger that," said Galvez. Jasper gestured for him to take point and lead the squad through the forest to the marker on their compass. They were reasonably sure that the forest around Black Forest was clear but they could never be too sure that an NCR recon team wouldn't come blundering into the perimeter. For that reason the squad moved cautiously, scanning the forest with their laser guns.

The forest seemed to stretch onwards infinitely, the trees and foliage so thick one could not see the edge until they were already walking through into a clear valley.

The hills that hid the Vault were north-northwest of Black Forest, just visible beyond the forest boundary.

There was little concealment between the forest and the hills, and Jasper watching the horizon cautiously for signs of approaching forces. This would be a bad place to get caught out in the open.

"Our scouts didn't pass very close to these hills," said Keegan. "They didn't lack the lack of cover."

"We'll get low on our bellies when we top the hill. Take a look at what's on the other side before making our move," Jasper ordered.

The power armor made short work of the hill climb, servos doing the hard work. Another advantage of the armor, besides its protective qualities, was the lightened workload for the user. Where other soldiers would suffer exhaustion a paladin or knight could continue to fight.

Jasper crawled up to the crest of the hill, laser rifle resting in front of him. He scanned the horizon beyond the next few hills, activated his visor's zoom function to examine the surrounding area.

In the distance he could just make out a line of silhouettes. His heart jumped at first but then he relaxed when he saw that they couldn't be people. They were contorted in unreal angles, and he could just make out the frame keeping them upright. They reminded him of scarecrows but they weren't in any type of field, just a grassy plain that was rapidly overgrowing them.

"What is that?" he asked.

"I can't make it out from here, even with optics," Keegan said. "We can take a look later."

"Right," Jasper said. For some reason they were giving him the creeps and he decided that he would be much happier just getting this recon over with.

The metal shack looked like one of the hundreds of abandoned gas stations Jasper had seen littering the roads of California. He had never quite thought of it but it made sense for such things to reach as far north as they had come. If people could travel there they would need fuel.

However, as they approached it became increasingly clear that this was no real gas station. It was too far from any main roads to believable have been a real business, and Jasper knew from past experience that the Vaults could sometimes be found in disguised places.

Much like how the Brotherhood preferred to use secrecy and concealment in its activities, Jasper imagined the builders of the Vaults had intended for many of them to be secret from those that could not enter.

Although from what Jasper had seen of the Vaults, no one was intended to survive them anyways. He'd seen several in his time and all of them had been abandoned. They had the same basic setup with living spaces and reactor rooms. Many, though, had designs that verged on the insane.

It was understood that the Vaults had been intended for pre-war society to survive the apocalypse but no Vault Jasper had seen had made the years between being closed and being opened again.

He'd seen Vaults that appeared to be designed to kill its own inhabitants, with defects in essential systems. Records of personnel and occupations suggested that a few were intentionally populated with the exact sort of people you didn't want to be locked away with for years.

They were horror stories each. Perhaps it was best such things didn't survive after all.

Regardless of his personal feelings, Jasper knew that every Vault was well-stocked with medical supplies and weapons, sometimes even carrying valuable blueprints for the manufacturing of equipment for survival in the wasteland. Some few were even supposed to be equipped with Garden Of Eden Creation Kits for the transformation of irradiated soil and water into the building blocks of civilization.

To find such a thing would be valuable but the Brotherhood rarely made Vaults a priority. They were not military installations and did not hold the dangerous technologies at the heart of the Brotherhood's mission.

It was a mistake, Jasper felt, to ignore the value of peaceful technologies. The Brotherhood's own slow decline was proof of that.

They approached the shack in a chevron formation, Taylor covering their rear and Galvez on point.

The door to the shack was a rickety sheet metal thing, already hanging off its hinges.

Galvez reached up and pulled it free from its hinges.

Jasper was first through the door, his rifle up and scanning around the small room. It was empty with bare floors. The far wall was built against the side of the hill, and a large bulkhead hatch was the only point of interest in the little rusted chamber.

"I think that door is what we're looking for," said Keegan. She approached it, reaching out to grab the handle with her left hand, laser rifle leveled at the door in her right.

She gripped the handle and twisted it to release the latches keeping the door sealed. If this was indeed a Vault entrance or the entrance to any other bunker there was no telling what was on the other side of that door.

Jasper braced himself, pressing the stock of his rifle against his shoulder.

She pulled the door and it swung open and she stepped back, crouching low.

"Oh, Christ," Taylor muttered when he saw what was hanging from the inside of the door. A human corpse, twisted and skinned, tied to a wooden frame with barbed wire. Jasper felt his stomach tighten and he knew what those "scarecrows" outside were.

"Looks like we weren't the first visitors," Keegan said. She tapped the door with the toe of her armored boot to push it wide open. Jasper stepped forth and slid through the doorway to the cold hall built within the hill.

It went down at a slope, gently, until the cold concrete floor became stairs going down maybe a hundred feet. The concrete was cracked and chipped from years of standing and from the weight of nuclear explosions in the world above.

"Easy now. Watch your step," Jasper warned and he led the way down the stairs, down the long tunnel to the massive Vault door below.

Like any Vault the door was labeled with its number, 24. The door was wide open, exposing the Vault that it had once sealed.

"I hope this doesn't mean we're too late," said Keegan. "If this place has already been raided-"

"We'll check it out anyways. Come back in force if we see anything creepy."

The Vault's entryway was mostly machinery for operating the door. Jasper didn't pretend to understand the particulars behind the operation but he did gather how the big claw hanging overhead was necessary to manipulate the door into opening and closing.

Unlike the few other Vaults Jasper had explored the overhead lights in here were fully operational. He could see clearly in the fluorescent shine, and that made him nervous. If this Vault had been pillaged long ago then the reactors should have shut down after years without maintenance.

"I don't think we're alone down here," Jasper said.

He gestured to the hatch door separating them from the Vault's proper interior.

"Galvez, get it open."

Galvez bounded up the short steps to the door and he looked at the control panel.

"It's unlocked," he said and flipped the switch. The door retreated into the ceiling and unveiled the cold hallway beyond.

Jasper frowned, feeling sweat bead on his forehead. Blood smeared the hall beyond, trailing around corners. Furniture and papers littered the hallway, shining steel and cement made a deep rust color by dried blood.

"I think we should head back," Taylor said. Jasper shook his head.

"Whatever happened here happened a while ago. We need medical supplies or you'll die of infection next time you get a paper cut."

Jasper proved the bravery of his words by stepping through the threshold into the Vault hallway. He panned his head left and right and saw the living quarters that lined the hallways open and in tatters. Dressers were torn open and the clothes inside strewn about. Beds were overturned and their sheets piled in corners.

Blood streaked windows and Jasper imagined a blood smeared hand wiped across the glass.

Most Vaults were built along the same basic layout, with medical facilities near the living quarters, just off the atrium. Jasper kept his laser rifle up and sliced the nearest corner, guessing that a left turn would get them there just the same as a right.

The entire Vault was a ransacked mess, though whoever attacked it didn't seem to have been doing anything in particular but making the place filthy. Blood smeared the walls and glass but it was quickly apparent that someone had put it there purposely. Rooms were trashed and computers were smashed it appeared to be violence for the sake of violence.

The atrium was a wreck of smashed glass and debris from lockers thrown from the second floor balcony. Personal belongings and mattresses littered the floor.

"Doctor's office, door left," said Jasper, indicating the sealed doors marked with a bright green medical cross. Keegan crossed over, covering the window that appeared to have barricaded within with lockers and overturned tables.

"Locked," Keegan said. She slung her rifle and popped off the door panel. These civilian doors all had the same weakness. She ripped out a wire and split it down the middle. A quick application to a neighboring wire and the panel flashed green.

She flipped the switch and the door opened.

The interior of the office was surprisingly clean, and not a sign of anyone. The lockers on the far wall were still sealed, so Jasper ripped the door right off.

"Bingo," he said, and smiled. Keegan pulled the door free from the next locker, and the next one. She through the broken door back into the atrium, and it rattled loudly.

The lockers were still full of supplies, from scalpels to Rad-X. Disinfectants and stims. Bandages, sutures.

"Bag it up and let's go," said Jasper, loosing the duffel from around his shoulder. He reached in and grabbed a full first aid kit and placed it in the bag. And then he heard it.

It sounded like a hollow pipe being slammed against a concrete floor and droned on and on.

 _Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang._

The noise rang through the atrium from deeper within the Vault. Taylor and Maroney were spooked and they hovered near the door to the medical office with their rifles pointed out.

"What the fuck is that?" Taylor asked of no one.

"I don't like this, Jas," Keegan said. "I think we should get the hell out of here."

"Yeah," he said. He hefted one bag over his shoulder and lifted his laser rifle. They would come back another day with backup and clear the Vault properly, strip it before they sealed it permanently.

And then they heard something else.

"Help! Help us!"

"Oh, fuck no," Taylor said. "Let's get out of here, boss."

"Wait a minute," said Jasper.

They could hear shouts from within the Vault, screaming for help. Jasper craned his head and tried to decipher past his armor's audio feed where the calls were coming from.

"It's this way," he said and pointed with his laser rifle. "I want to find out who it is."

"Senior Paladin I have to respectfully disagree with this course of action," Galvez said.

"Noted."

He turned and looked at Keegan. "Are you with me?"

She shook her head before saying, "Fuck. I'm with you."

Jasper handed his bag off to Taylor.

"Stay here and secure the atrium. Keegan and I will take a look."

"This is a bad idea," Taylor muttered. He raised his weapon and scanned the upper levels.

Jasper and Keegan went deeper into the Vault, carefully maneuvering through the halls in case there were any surprises waiting. They could still hear people calling for help and Jasper could just make out at least one man and woman.

They were near the reactor room, he realized. Even as they approached the source of the sound Jasper felt that he knew what was happening.

The reactor room door was jammed, its cover open revealing a carefully placed wrench in the mechanism keeping it from opening more than a few inches off the ground.

A man reached out with a bare hand, blue eyes pleading from under the door.

"Hey! Hey!" he shouted. "Help us, please!"

Jasper approached cautiously, Keegan hanging back to secure their rear.

"Please help us!" the man pleaded. "They locked us in here!"

"How many are you?"

"I think there's twenty of us left. Please, they locked us in here. We've been in here for days!"

"Who locked you in there?"

"It was someone we knew! He used to live here! It was him and a bunch of… natives!"

"Why'd he do this to you?" Jasper slung his laser rifle and took a knee.

The man was lying on his stomach, reaching out desperately from under the door.

"We made him leave," the man admitted. "We threw him out of the Vault and he came back with these people and they attacked!"

Jasper frowned yet again. He had no idea what he was doing. He couldn't leave these people here to starve to death or worse. But he couldn't bring them back. He was the commander of his chapter now and had to look to the Brotherhood's ultimate mission: defeating the NCR and securing dangerous technologies from the ignorant.

The Codex was clear on that point.

Then why was he grabbing the wrench pulling it free of the door?

Keegan stopped him before he could liberate the Vaulters from their prison.

"What are you doing?" she demanded. She grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

"I'm setting these people free," Jasper said. "I'm not going to leave them in here to rot."

"You can't take them with us!" she declared.

"Hey, wait," the man said. "You people aren't soldiers are you?"

Jasper realized that the man must have thought that he and Keegan were US Army soldiers because of their armor and weapons. He was a real Vaulter, a person born and raised in the Vault, and had no idea what the outside world was like. Keegan and Jasper looked like the soldiers in his historical tapes.

"I'm going to let them loose," said Jasper. Keegan shook her head again.

"And then what?"

"Look please just help us! We'll do whatever you want!"

"You cannot take them with us."

"I make the calls here, Keegan. I won't let these people die like this."

"The Codex says-"

"The Codex says 'Aid them when you can'-"

"'But do not lose sight of yourself!'"

Jasper stared at her.

"Keegan, they'll die if we don't help."

"We have a mission, Jas. We're at war."

Those words burned.

"We're at war."

So everything had to change. He was so tired of hearing that. He was tired of using it to justify things he never had to before.

There was a time not long ago when he could trust in himself and his friends. Looking at Keegan right now he remembered when he had every bit of faith in her to support him, to watch his back.

He remembered battles fought alongside her, against the NCR and others. He remembered a time when she was the one person he could count on.

"We're at war," he said agreeing. "And we're losing. We have to do everything we can to survive. These people are Vault Dwellers. They have education, they have skills that we can't find out there and we are low on manpower."

"Yes," The man said, grinning. "Take us! Take us! We can help you, whatever you need. I swear."

"This will blow up in your face," said Keegan. Jasper nodded.

"I expect it will," and he pulled the wrench free and allowed the door to open fully.

The man was standing now, carefully stepping back into the reactor. A large group of people were gathered around him, some clutching weapons.

"Drop your weapons," Keegan said. Over their comm. She said to Jasper, "That's non-negotiable. They can't come armed."

He nodded at that.

"Drop your weapons and raise your hands," Jasper said. To Keegan, "Radio up to Taylor and let them know we have guests."


	6. Chapter 6

They returned to the atrium and there Taylor, Galvez and Maroney looked uneasy. They were solid soldiers, though, and would not question Jasper's orders in front of civilians. When they returned Black Forest there would be one hell of a discussion, that was sure.

"Galvez, get some sheets out of that doctor's office and tear some strips for blind folds," Jasper ordered. There was no need for these people to figure out where Black Forest was. "Taylor we're going to find the armory and spike it."

He didn't want whoever had trashed the Vault to come back and raid the armory and he had no way to take it with him.

"I don't think you'll need to do that," said the man that had begged for help. The name tag on his Vault 24 said "Reed".

"Why's that?"

"They already took every gun we had stored. And all the ammo."

"What happened here? Who did this?"

Reed shook his head. "I don't know where to begin. I'll tell you when we get safe. I don't want to be here anymore."

The people all looked scared and dirty. A few had injuries. Someone had attacked this place and for all any of them knew he would be coming back. Jasper suddenly wanted to be back in his bunker.

They led the survivors in a column, blindfolded and out of the Vault. Taylor and Galvez took up security, watching the horizon now that the sun was heading down. Jasper tried not to eye the "scarecrows" too carefully.

"Sir, we have incoming," said Taylor. Jasper went to his side and took a knee. He keyed up his zoom optics.

"Keegan," he said. "Hurry up."

Across the plain, coming just over the horizon, a line of maybe a dozen figures. And more were coming. They were marching in loose order towards the Vault, not yet able to see Taylor and Jasper.

From here Jasper could just make out weapons. A few rifles, some spears and other makeshift devices. He could see tattered, rough clothing and horns and spikes and other crude decorations.

"Tribals," said Jasper. Most tribes were not a threat to the Brotherhood, being too primitive to stand against power armor and laser weapons. But right now Jasper didn't want to press his luck. He had civilians, and he was working with an understrength unit.

If these tribals had a trick up their sleeve he didn't want to endanger himself and his men.

They had to double time it to be in the forest before those tribals saw them and followed them back. He doubted they could track all the way back to the base but he wasn't going to stake lives on it.

"Black Forest, Black Forest," he said into his radio. "Raptor team coming in, plus twenty."

 _"_ _Say again, Raptor. How many?"_

"Twenty. We have twenty civilians coming in."

Silence for a heartbeat as they were ushered into the trees. Jasper turned and watched the hills, holding his laser rifle tight and wondering if he had made the right choice.

Then, _"Roger that, Raptor. Doors are open for you."_

Of course it had been a controversial decision.

The mess hall was filled now with members of the order. Not all of them, of course, as there were many duties that needed around-the-clock attention but enough to fill the mess hall and spill into the hallway.

They were all trying to talk over each other, voicing their dissatisfaction at the newcomers from outside the order. They were in quarantine currently, being examined in the medbay by the scribes, being picked over for parasites and diseases.

Jasper was not the most popular of paladins at the moment.

"The Codex mandates clearly that we cannot help the outsiders! They are the blind!" someone shouted.

"We can't trust these people, we know nothing about them!"

"This isn't our conflict."

Jasper stood before the crowd, hands raised to silence the roar of shouts and admonishments.

"I did not make this choice lightly," Jasper said once the shouting had died down. "I did this because I believed it to be the best course of action."

"You endangered us all!" shouted a young knight whose name Jasper couldn't recall.

"Let's look at the facts!" said Jasper. "These twenty-two additions to our force will pay their burden with interest. We have new engineers, new reactor technicians, cooks, personnel that will alleviate the strain being put on our own limited resources. Even now brothers that are required to be at their station at all hours are able to relax and rest."

"Our mission is to keep these people away from the technology in this base! You've brought them to it!"

"I believe that this decision will benefit our mission. We have already suffered a serious loss that has put us in threat of total destruction. Any advantage we can get over the enemy I will not allow to slip from our grasp."

There were more murmurs then, some minds perhaps changed begrudgingly.

"I know the tenets of the Codex," said Jasper. "I know what our Sacred Mission is and always has been. I also know we are at war with an enemy that has us on the back foot. We are outnumbered and we will be outgunned if we do not accept every opportunity that we get. And I will not apologize for adding personnel when we are severely short of manpower."

"What about the tribals? Are we getting ourselves into another war?"

"Hugo Reed described the situation to me. Vault 24 was opened earlier this year per their instruction. They began trade and commerce with outside tribal groups. An internal schism led their head schoolteacher Malcolm Rawlins to separate from the Vault with a large group and he somehow fell in with tribals and has now come to lead them."

"Are we going to war for these people?"

Jasper swallowed. "We're the Brotherhood. We're always at war."

There were a lot of pale looks at that, and they all muttered and shook their heads.

"If these tribals want to go to war with _us_ then we will do what we do to any threat; eliminate and neutralize."

That got them. More brothers grinned and looked at each other with pride.

"I intend to fight this base," said Jasper. "Against the NCR or tribals or anyone else that wants to have a go. And I know that there isn't a man or woman here that disagrees with me."

A few actually cheered at that, and clapped. He was dead serious, and grimacing.

"Now, we need to strengthen our defenses. Assume that we will be under attack. I need an LP/OP set up at the forest edge, watching in the direction of that Vault. I want to reorient our mine fields and turrets to cover that approach," Jasper said, becoming sterner and waving his hands in a stabbing motion like the drill sergeants in the old vids he would watch as a kid. "I want patrols, around the clock, watching this perimeter. Now that we have troops freed up from unimportant tasks like cooking we actually have the opportunity to start fighting back."

The gathered men and women cheered that, and for the first time since Fort Collins fell he saw smiles on their faces. They filed out then, satisfied or at least placated. All left the mess hall but Keegan, who stood with her arms crossed and her brow furrowed.

"What do you need, Keegan?" he asked, sitting down on a nearby table.

"You never were a fan of the Codex," she said matter-of-factly. He snorted.

"I like the Codex just fine," he said. She approached him cautiously, still scowling.

"What you did was dangerous. And a violation of the Codex, and a violation of the entire _purpose_ of our order."

"I did what I had to do," said Jasper. "And it worked didn't it? Don't we have two new doctors? Don't we have new engineers? New recruits if we need it?"

"And what if they had been diseased? What if it's a trap by those very same tribals they say killed their friends? You might have just murdered us all."

"Oh, please. I had to make a decision. I made it. I wasn't going to leave people to die and I'm never going to tell you I was wrong."

"Fuck you," Keegan said. Jasper snorted again.

"If only," he said, managing the best sarcastic drawl he could.

"Hey," Keegan said, stepping closer and stabbing a finger at him. "Really, _fuck you_ , you prick."

Jasper stood up then.

"I see you haven't changed a bit."

"Oh, I've changed," she said. He shook his head.

"That's the problem isn't it?"

"We're at war."

"Are we?"

"Yes!"

Jasper turned to walk away from her, headed for the door. He stopped before leaving.

"You know, there is going to come a day when you can't hide behind the war or the Brotherhood or the Codex and you're going to have to admit – to me and yourself – that you were the one that threw away what we had."

She watched him leave and he was very aware of her eyes on his back as he made the long walk from the mess hall to his quarters. He couldn't wait for the dark room and the comfort of solitude.


End file.
